Friday, April 17, 2015

The Singing of the Dead

I visited a friend for the first time and spent a long time looking over her beautiful bookshelves, asking about authors she had collected and learning a bit more about her. Bookshelves are the window to the soul, aren't they?

She loaned me The Singing of the Dead, by a mystery writer I'd never heard of before - Dana Stabenow. This is the 11th book in the series and I definitely want to read more! The lead character is Kate Shugak, an Aleut, a detective/contractor who lives in Alaska and recently lost her husband. Kate is feisty and sad and doesn't put up with shit. She's hired by a political campaigner (another Alaskan native woman who's running for office) who is getting threatening letters. Kate doesn't really care about the politics but she needs the money and they pay well.

Alternately, the story of a prostitute in the very early 20th century, gold-rush days in Alaska is told. She's murdered. Kate learns about this woman and discovers her connection to the campaign. I like Kate because she's so passionate - she gives a little speech about the limited opportunities for women in that period, without birth control, the right to vote, etc. "Who cares what the founding mothers of our fair state did to get here, to stay here? What else was there to do for a woman back then? Wife, mother, maid, that was it. You were born, you got married, you had a bunch of kids first because there wasn't any way not to and second because the kids were your social security, and then you died, usually way too young, most of the time in childbirth. What did you do if you were a woman and you didn't want that?"

I learned a little bit about Alaskan history and perhaps a tiny bit about Alaskan natives (two subjects I knew very little about) so I really appreciated the Alaskan angle. I'm kind of surprised this hasn't been made into a TV series - I could totally see like a show like Wallander or The Killing out of this.